Its Tuesday so that meant it was time to head to Great White to play some Strange Aeons. This evening I was able to get in a game of the Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten rules. For those not aware of them they are a set of rules that Mike is developing to work with his Strange Aeons rules. You can <a href="
http://strange-aeons.ca/sa/?page_id=23" target="_blank">download them from his website[/url] and offer feedback on the rules and test them out.
Unlike Strange Aeons which pits the forces of good against the forces of evil, Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten pits cults of evildoers against one another to fight for loot, infamy, the favour of the Elder Gods and territory. Mike played his Death Cult, lead by a Mummy, against my cult of Dagonites.
While the game uses the same core mechanics as Strange Aeons, the game plays quite differently since the forces being fielded are typically larger than your average Strange Aeons game. My Dagonite Cult had three Cultists, two Fishemen and a High Priest. The basic starting cult is 40 BP which is a fairly huge game in Strange Aeons. Complicating this further, a starting cult is large but you aren't able to spend points on skills so you have a large number of fairly basic models.
Mike and I played the "Steal the Artifacts" scenario pitting my newly formed Cult against Mike's Death worshipping menagerie consisting of a Mummy, three zombies, a conglomerate and four Cultists. Mike's Mummy had Improved Command so he was able to bring his forces forward more quickly than I was. He slowly advanced up the centre of the board bringing his Zombie up behind his Mummy and sweeping his Cultists in from the sides. Since the Mummy caused Fear he had to be careful with his Cultists.
I moved up the centre as well trying to sweep my Cultists to one flank to take over the first objective and move my Fishmen up the other side to charge any zombies or other cult members attacking from my right.
Both of us quickly took control of and searched an objective each and then we swapped fire. Mike shot his Bolt Action rifles from long range but wasn't successful with them and was only able to take out one of my Cultists with a Major Injury. I managed to move one of my Fishmen to the far right and was lucky to be able to charge one of his Bolt Action armed Cultists who promptly failed his Hideous check and was removed with a Major Injury after he went Face Down.
Mike later moved a Zombie and his Conglomerate to attack the Fishmen and after a few rounds of combat the Fishmen was removed with a Minor injury. The Zombie and Conglomerate both moved back towards my Cultists and the Zombie was taken out by fire from my Tommy Gun wielding Cultist.
I was lucky to take out two Zombies that Mike was using to plug up the charge lanes on the left and I snuck my High Priest off to the far left and charged the second Bolt Action Cultist. The High Priest had successfully cast Touch of Death at the beginning of the game and when he won combat the Cultist was removed with a Major Injury with no need to take a Wound Roll. This put Mike below half strength and so he had to take a Cult Unity Test to determine which of his models stuck around to fight. Sadly his Mummy and Conglomerate fled the field leaving a single Cultist who then succeeded his "Last Man Standing" roll. Sadly this display of verve and nerve was rewarded by my High Priest charging him and removing him via his Touch of Death.
In the post game phase I lost my Cultist and Mike lost two models and then sacrificed three injured models to try to increase his odds for finding Favour with the Elder Gods. Sadly Mike rolled a one and was denied any renown from his otherworldly masters.
It was only my first game but I found the larger size of the game to be quite fun and I really like the campaign system. Its more brutal than Strange Aeons and has an eldritch feel to it that makes it a lot of fun to play. I'm looking forward to playing it again and getting some more of the folks at Great White playing it as part of the regular Tuesday night gaming.